Toggling harpoon
Arpón de cabezal móvil (toggling harpoon)
- Date
- c. 5500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- L'Anse Amour, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- Credited to
- Maritime Archaic tradition (Indigenous peoples of the North Atlantic)
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A harpoon head that, on sinking into the prey, rotates perpendicular to the line and lodges under the skin. It made it possible to hunt large marine mammals from light boats.
An Indigenous contribution. The example from the L'Anse Amour burial mound (c. 7500 BP) is the oldest known; the technique was later perfected by Palaeo-Eskimo and Inuit peoples.
What it led to
- the hunting of seals, walruses and whales in the Arctic
- Inuit and Thule float-harpoon technology
- the modern toggle-head whaling harpoon (19th century)